


We'll Meet Again

by knitwit1912



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Developing Relationship, F/F, Female Phil Coulson, Female Steve Rogers, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Phyllis Coulson - Freeform, Phyllis Coulson/Stella Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Soul Bond, Soulmate-First Words, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stella Rogers - Freeform, Time Travel, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitwit1912/pseuds/knitwit1912
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across seventy years, they find each other; the woman who has already died, and the woman who hasn't yet become a hero.  The phrases written on their left arms may not fit, but the bond between them grows stronger as they fight to keep the future from being undone and to get Phyllis home, as much as she and Stella are increasingly tempted to let her stay.</p>
<p>But soul bonds are stronger than either of them can imagine, and their path is already laid out, should they choose to take it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stella Rogers knew better than to investigate what had just made a soft “crack!” and then a rattling sound in the alley next to her building on a dim December evening, but that didn’t stop her from slowing down and listening.

There was another rattle of garbage cans, but instead of the rustle of something digging into the cans for its lunch or the yowl of a cat whose territory had been encroached on, there was only a low moan. An all too human moan, if she’d heard right.

She turned her head, tilting her right ear toward the alley, and listened.

“H-hello?” she asked, knowing Bucky would tear a strip off her if he was here for even stopping near a dark alley, but not listening to his voice inside her head. Something made her stop, something made her wait, something told her she needed to do this. “Is someone there?”

There was another moan, more pained this time, and a rustle as someone moved, or tried to.

She hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other in the yellow spill of the streetlight, peering down the alley. She could practically hear Bucky’s voice right now, “Stel, what in the hell were you _thinking_ ”—probably because she’d heard it so many times before. 

She rubbed at the soul mark on the inside of her right arm: Bucky’s half-legible scrawl, _You okay?_ It had showed up when she was eight, much to her Ma’s relief on her right arm instead of her left. Eight was all right for a platonic soul bond, but if it had been romantic, her Ma would have had kittens (just as well her Ma had never had time to find out that there were reasons Bucky’s soulmark wouldn’t have appeared on her other arm, after all). Two weeks after it appeared, Eileen O’Connell had pushed her down for trying to keep Eileen from picking on a first-grader. Bucky had picked her up off the ground, asked her if she was okay, and that was it; best friends for life, never more than a couple blocks away from each other at any given time. At least that was until two months earlier. Now Bucky was in Jersey, in basic training, and he’d never felt quite so far away as he did now. She knew that distance was only going to get worse, and tried not to think about it.

Well, as long as it wasn’t some kind of axe murderer down that alley, Bucky didn’t ever need to know about this, did he?

Stella took a deep breath, and glanced around. There was a trash can nearby and she grabbed the lid, holding it in front of her.

“Is there someone in here? Is anyone hurt?”

It could be a tramp looking for food, could be a trap to lure someone down the alley to be robbed. But she couldn’t walk away, knew that if she did, she’d be wondering all night if there was someone down there who needed help. Night had only just fallen, but it was already the kind of cold that pinched your nose and cheeks and stole the feeling from your fingers and toes. Not the kind of night she could head back to her apartment and not wonder if there was someone in the alley outside, freezing to death.

As she moved into the alley, her eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and she could pick up some shapes from the light coming from the nearly full moon, less from the few windows on this side of her building, as well as the little amount that filtered in from the dimmed streetlights.

There was movement on the ground just a couple feet in front of her and she jumped back with a gasp, before she realized that the shape in front of her was a person; a person not too much taller than she was. Their hair was dark, too long for a man, but shorter and looser than most women Stella knew wore theirs. She could make out enough of the shape of the dark jacket the person was wearing to guess it was a woman, a guess confirmed as she saw a finely-boned hand try to push the woman up off the ground. It seemed to be a struggle, and the woman didn’t get very far, only managing to push herself up to a sitting position, her back against the trash cans.

“Can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Stella asked, stepping closer and putting a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

The woman flinched, and looked up at Stella, giving Stella her first, dim view of the woman’s face. Even in the low light, she could make out the blood trickling down the side of her face, the glazed look in the woman’s eyes as she fought to try and focus and couldn’t.

The woman blinked. “You look familiar,” she said, her words thick and slow.

Stella froze at hearing the words that were written on the inside of her left wrist. They weren’t _that_ unique for a soul bond phrase; she’d been greeted with them once before and it had been a false alarm then. But there was always the possibility…

Except she’d already spoken to the woman, so figuring out what she should say was a moot point. The woman closed her eyes and gave a weak shake of her head; Stella could feel the tremor in the woman’s arm as she lifted her arm to cradle her head in her hand. Even if this was Stella’s soulmate, she wasn’t alert enough to have recognized the words. Stella would just have to check when she got a chance.

“Come on; let’s get you inside, and then I’ll call for help. You need to be seen by a doctor—“

“No doctors. Can’t…they won’t understand…” the woman said, her tone urgent now, though her voice was shaking more with the effort.

“Okay, no doctors,” Stella said, “but we need to get you inside and warmed up, and get that cut cleaned up.”

The woman didn’t say anything, but when Stella put her arm under the woman’s and tried to pull her to her feet, the woman moved with her and didn’t try to fight her grip. Good thing, too; Stella was pretty sure she’d never have gotten the woman to her feet if she didn’t help Stella at least a little.

Stella pulled the woman’s arm around her own thin shoulders, feeling the pressure on her back as some of her weight leaned on Stella. At least they didn’t have to go far, though Stella sent up a silent prayer that the woman would be able to stay conscious long enough to make it.

“All right, slow and steady,” Stella said, leading them out of the alley with shuffling, labored steps. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest before they even reached the front door of her building, and she sent up a silent prayer that they’d make it to her apartment without triggering an asthma attack.

Somehow they made it up the one flight of stairs without an asthma attack on her part or a lapse into unconsciousness on the part of her surprise visitor, though the woman leaned on her more and more with each step. She’d never been more grateful for her tiny dumb-bell apartment and the short distance from door to bed than she was right then.

No sooner did Stella get the woman lying down than she said, “You’re so small,” her voice barely a whisper, her eyes rolled back in her head and the hand on Stella’s arm went limp.

Stella dropped into the threadbare armchair next to the bed and closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the erratic racing of her heart, taking deep breaths to try and calm it. What on earth had she gotten herself into?

After a couple minutes with her eyes closed, willing herself to relax and let her heartbeat return to its normal—well, normal for her—rhythm, she got to her feet and turned on the light next to the chair so she could get a better look at her visitor. The woman was older than Stella was, maybe in her late forties, with light brown hair that had the occasional strand of grey running through it. She was maybe half a foot taller than Stella, and from what Stella could see, she looked strong.

The problem was, from what she could see, everything about the woman looked slightly wrong. Stella had already noticed that her hair was styled differently than most of the women she knew, and now that she could get a better look at her clothing, it looked odd, too. It was a simple charcoal grey pantsuit with a light blue blouse, but it just…looked _wrong_. Stella wasn’t exactly a clothes horse, but she could recognize that there was something different about the cut of the woman’s clothes; the waist of the trousers too low, the shoulders of the jacket and the legs of the trousers too narrow. There were other ways it seemed wrong, but she didn’t pay enough attention to fashion to really be able to name just what they were. She couldn’t see going into a store and seeing that suit on a mannequin, at least.

She was dying to check the inside of the woman’s left wrist, but reached for the pocket of the woman’s jacket instead, then stopped for a second. Would it be any less rude to look in her pockets than it would be to check the woman’s soulmark? It seemed a little like she was invading her visitor’s privacy, but then she’d been so adamant that Stella not call a doctor, and if the woman had family that was wondering where she was…

Reaching into the pocket closest to her, she found a leather wallet, one that looked more like a man’s wallet than a woman’s pocketbook. She flipped it open to see an identity card, taking a step back from the side of the bed with a gasp as she read it.

The text on the top said it was a New York State driver’s license, but it didn’t look anything like the card she was used to. This wasn’t a piece of heavy paper with the details handwritten on it; it was celluloid or some other kind of plastic with everything—even a photograph--printed right on the card, and the text, photo and background were all in shockingly clear color.

But that wasn’t the only thing that made Stella’s breath catch in her throat, that made her sink back into her chair in shock. It was three lines printed on the card:

DOB: 07-08-64  
ISSUED: 10-22-09  
EXPIRY: 12-30-17 

Stella swallowed, looking between the photograph of the woman on the card and the woman lying in her bed. The pictures matched; even if she didn’t think about how the card could have been made, there was no way the woman in front of her was born in 1864 and happened to have a more than thirty-year-old ID card in her pocket. But if this woman wasn’t born in 1864, then the only other option was for the birthdate to mean 1964…

It couldn’t be true. It had to be a fake of some kind, though how or why, she couldn’t figure out at the moment. She couldn’t _think_ , her head whirling as she stared down at the card in her hand as though any minute she expected to blink and have it appear completely normal again.

It had to be fake; the woman could be a German spy for all Stella knew. There were posters and newspaper articles warning people to be on the lookout for spies. But…wouldn’t a spy want to hide? Wouldn’t they have an ID card that looked like anyone else’s, with dates that seemed much more plausible?

She wanted to shut her eyes and tell herself it was some kind of hoax. Wanted to tell herself that with any blink the card in her hand would change to something more familiar, more…possible. That there was no way the woman in front of her—Phyllis Coulson, according to the card in her hand—was really from more than seventy years in the future.

But as she clenched her fingers around the card, its sharp, sturdy edges biting into her hand, it started to become a little easier to believe in the impossible.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that Phyl noticed as she drifted back to consciousness was the massive headache pounding away inside her skull.  She had to wonder for a moment if she’d had too much to drink, as it  felt like the worst hangover she’d ever had, though she could be pretty sure she would never have had that much to drink.  Not these days, when so much was resting on her shoulders.  Besides, as she lay there and tried to think of what the last thing was that she remembered, the memory that surfaced was of being in the field with May, searching for an artefact; not the time to knock a few back.

Ever so slowly, other memories began to filter back, though they were blurry and indistinct.  A feeling like she was being pulled apart, intense cold, and a woman’s voice and face, along with the sense that the woman had been vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t remember her features now.

Phyl forced her eyes open, closing them again as the light hit them and another stab of pain went through her head.   She turned her head away from the light, opening her eyes slowly, until her head at least didn’t hurt any worse and she’d shaken off enough of the mental cobwebs to focus on her surroundings.  She’d already figured out that she was lying on a sofa or bed, something soft under her head and with a blanket covering her, but it was only after she opened her eyes that she saw that she was in a bed with a plain, white-enamelled metal frame and headboard, the blanket thin and worn.  The bed was up against a wall, under a window covered in thick, dark curtains; all the light was coming from within the room.  

She turned her head toward the light to her left and squinted at her surroundings, trying to pick up clues about where she was from what she was seeing.  The room she was in looked like a small sitting room, and on the opposite wall was an open doorway to what looked like a kitchen.  The light was coming from the kitchen, but not just through the doorway; there were two sashed windows cut in the walls separating the two rooms.   She had a feeling she’d seen that kind of setup somewhere else before, but she couldn’t remember where at the moment.  Looking back at the room she was in, she took in the armchair, the small desk, the wallpaper; everything looked old-fashioned and more than a little shabby.  There were papers on the desk as well as a small lamp, and there were sketches—face and hand studies by the look of it—tacked up on the wall above the desk.

Phyl closed her eyes again as the pain shooting through her head got too bad to ignore, at the same time a door opened nearby.  Lifting her head off the pillow and squinting, she saw two doors on the opposite side of the kitchen as well as the back of the woman that had just stepped into the room as she turned to close the door behind her.  She got a glimpse of blonde hair pulled back into rolls on the woman’s head, before she had to let her head drop back to the pillow and close her eyes, even that little exertion making her head start to swim.

“Oh, is the light too bright?” the woman asked.  The woman’s voice sounded so familiar; Phyl’s breath caught in her throat for a second as she recognized it, before her logical brain caught up.

It couldn’t be her.  It had been more than two years since she’d heard _that_ voice, and she doubted that, if it was the person Phyl was thinking of, she’d have had that gentle tone in her voice on seeing Phyl was awake.  She had to have it wrong.

The kitchen light clicked off, and Phyl heard the woman turn on the lamp over by the desk, then come close to the bed.

“So.  I guess I should ask what things are like in the 21st century,” the woman said, her voice shaking.  Phyl opened her eyes again, saw the woman’s face, and froze.

Her ears hadn’t been lying, she knew that face, though it wasn’t the face she’d been expecting.  She’d seen it enough times in biographies of Stella Rogers, as well as in the SHIELD files.  She’d looked at it long enough to know every feature of Rogers’ face before she’d been injected with the serum, the fine bones, dark-circled eyes and somewhat hollow cheeks.  Now that face loomed in front of her, in full colour instead of black and white.

“What--  What do you mean?”  Phyl asked.  She’d barely heard what Stella had said, Phyl was too busy trying to wrap her head around how she could be seeing Stella Rogers-- _pre-serum Stella Rogers--_ only a few feet away.

She had to be dreaming, or this had to be some kind of hallucination.  Tahiti had felt so real for so long, and even now, knowing the truth, her memories of it were just that—memories, no different than any she’d made since then, or at least they didn’t feel that way.  If those memories could seem that real, why couldn’t a hallucination or implanted experience feel real while it was happening?

“I found this in your pocket when I went looking for an address or phone number for family or friends,” Stella said, handing over Phyl’s wallet, open to her driver’s license.  Phyl took it, and dimly noticed that Stella’s hand trembled a little as she held it out.  “Sounds like something out of a dime novel, but there was enough there to convince me that no matter how unbelievable it sounds, you’re from the future.”  She didn’t sound as though she was all that convinced actually, but then Phyl wasn’t exactly surprised.  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing herself.

Phyl tried to sit up but fell back against the pillow again with a groan as the room started spinning.  After a moment to let things settle, she looked at her license, blinking to try and clear her head.  Touching her forehead with her left hand, her fingers pressed against a particularly painful spot that was covered with a gauze pad.  She must have hit her head somehow; no wonder she felt dizzy.   Maybe that was the cause of the hallucination?  Well, that or someone manipulating her brain.  The thought brought back memories that made her stomach turn, and she pushed them away, trying to focus on the present, or what seemed like it.

“When you say ‘the future’…what day is it now?” she asked, playing along.  The small part of her that forced her to consider the possibility that this was real—she’d lived through some pretty weird stuff after all—knew that if this was really Stella Rogers before the serum, before she was Captain America, then Phyl had some idea of…of when it might be.  It couldn’t be, though.

“It’s December 9th, 1942.”

Phyl closed her eyes, breathing through her nose for a moment as she suddenly felt like she might throw up. _It’s not real, it can’t be real..._

“1942. And you are?” Phyl asked, though she knew the answer.

“Stella Rogers.  You’re in Brooklyn, New York if you wanted to know that too.”

Phyl took a couple more deep breaths, trying to remember what had happened before this.  They’d been searching for something; something dangerous, something they couldn’t let Hydra get their hands on.  Skye had handed her a tablet back at the Playground, and she could picture everything in her head, except what had been on the screen, what Skye had said.

“You seem to be taking this pretty calmly,” Phyl said, opening her eyes again, as the memory still wouldn’t surface.

“You didn’t see me when I found your wallet,” Stella said with a wobbly smile.  “Still doesn’t really seem real, though I keep telling myself if it’s a scam, it’s way too elaborate.  For the sake of argument, how’d you end up in my building’s trash cans if you really are from…uh, not now?”

“I don’t remember everything,” Phyl said, rubbing her forehead as she made another attempt to sit up.  This one went a little better than the last, though as she hauled herself into a sitting position she still had to close her eyes against the throbbing in her head.

“I…I’m part of an organization that tries to protect civilians from people and objects that have unusual abilities,” she said, not sure whether she should mention SHIELD or not.  Whether this was real or not, it seemed best not to.  “The last thing I remember, I and one of my colleagues were trying to get to an artefact we’d heard about; something dangerous, but I can’t really…”

 Phyl rubbed her forehead with her hand, trying to remember exactly what had happened.  Skye had handed her the tablet, Phyl had picked the team.  Prepping to go was clear enough, as was the ride in the quinjet, though it was hard to say whether that was because those things were so familiar or because she was remembering that specific instance was hard to say.  She did remember they were rushing to go, though, rushing because Hydra was so close and they’d intercepted a communication about the artefact, Skye’s face going pale as she’d shoved the tablet into Phyl’s hands saying that this could change everything—

_”This could change everything and we might not even realize it.  We don’t know how it works, after all; except in movies.”_

Phyl didn’t breathe for a second as the weight of the realization hit her.  Her memory was still hazy flashes and still images in her head, but the memory of what they’d been searching for was there, in all its horrific glory.

“What is it?” Stella asked, confused.

Phyl swallowed to try and keep from throwing up, focusing her gaze on one particular stain in the carpet.  “From what I remember, it was said the artefact we were looking for had…had the ability to alter events.  We were trying to get to it before a dangerous group got it and tried to use it to do some pretty bad things.”

“Something that can…alter events,” Stella said, and Phyl heard her take a deep breath, heard the squeak of the chair as she took a seat.  “And somehow that…brought you here?”

Phyl didn’t answer for a moment, trying to think it through.  “As much as it doesn’t sound possible, I think the stories about the artefact were slightly wrong.  Maybe it doesn’t change events itself.  Maybe it lets people…travel in time and they change things.  We must have found it, though I don’t remember doing so, or what happened when we did.”

“Well I guess we can figure out one thing that happened when you found it—you ended up here.”

Phyl looked up and saw Stella looking at her with a forced smile that looked so much like her later, larger self that it was almost unnerving.

“I guess so.”

“So if you know about this...artefact that brought you here…do you know why you ended up here, specifically?”

“No, I don’t.”  Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true; she had to assume that her turning up practically on the doorstep of the person she’d looked up to all her life wasn’t a coincidence.  But that couldn’t really be the reason she’d arrived in 1942, could it?

 

Stella watched Phyllis carefully, not sure whether she was trying to convince herself that Phyllis was lying or that she was telling the truth.  Phyllis’ story sounded like complete baloney, and there was a large part of her that said there was no way it could be true.  But then there was that driver’s license; she already half-believed that was real, or at least, found it hard to doubt it, and if she believed that, then the rest…well, it’d take a while to sink in, but she’d held the evidence in her hands, really.  Phyllis didn’t sound like she was lying, either, at least up until that last comment, that she didn’t know why she’d arrived at this time and place in particular.  The answer had almost been too fast, when every other answer had taken struggle and consideration and shock that had been written all over Phyllis’ face.  And then there had been that brief look when Phyllis had first seen her.  It had been shock as well, but it didn’t seem like she had been surprised to see a stranger.  More like Phyllis was seeing someone she recognized, but hadn’t expected to see.

But if she wasn’t going to say anything, then Stella wasn’t going to say anything either. Not until she had more to work with at least.

“Do…do you have any idea how to get back to where you’re from?” Stella asked, as it seemed like the other important question, assuming that she believed any of this.  Which, surprisingly enough, she thought she might.

This time there was a small pause before Phyllis answered.  “No.  I mean, I assume that I’d need the artefact to get back, but I don’t know where it is.  There wasn’t anything in my hand when you found me?”

“No.  I didn’t see anything on the ground around you, other than the garbage cans and trash bags, though it was pretty dark.  We can look in the morning.”

“Somehow I doubt it’ll be that easy.  It took us a while, and Skye had to—“ Phyllis stopped, a look of panic crossing her face.

“What’s wrong?” Stella asked, getting up from her chair and taking a step forward.

Phyllis patted the pockets of her trousers, her shoulders relaxing slightly as she reached into her right pocket and pulled out a rectangular object a little smaller than a postcard, and maybe a quarter of an inch thick. It was black, glass on one side, what looked like plastic or metal on the other.

“What is it?” Stella asked, “Is it the artefact?”

Phyllis shook her head, looking down at the object as she spoke, distracted.  “No, it’s my phone.”

Stella blinked, not sure she’d heard right.  A phone?  But there was no dial, no wires that she could see.  She was about to ask her to say it again, when Phyllis pushed a button and the glass side of the object lit up with an image—a stylized silver eagle in a silver circle, on a black background.

Stella gasped and took a step back, letting out a “Jesus Christ!” before she could stop herself.  That would cost her a few Hail Marys later, though she had the feeling if her priest was there, he’d have done the same thing.

“It’s called a cellular phone.  It transmits calls through the air—like a radio, only just to the phone you’re trying to reach.  A lot of them do other things, too,” Phyllis said, sliding her finger along the glass and tapping it so quickly that Stella couldn’t quite keep up with what she was doing.  “There’s a camera, a calculator, you can store music on it…”

Stella took the last couple steps to the bed and sank down onto it, feeling overwhelmed as she watched the screen change with every touch.  When she’d had a moment to collect herself, she noticed the look of concentration on Phyllis’ face, the way her hand tightened around her phone.

After a moment, Phyllis let out a small sigh, her shoulders sagging.  “Skye sent me a document she found about the artefact but it’s not coming up now.  No signal,” she said, her mouth twisting in a wry, pained smile.

Stella took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment.  This was all too confusing, her mind bursting with questions about the device Phyllis held in her hand. She had a feeling that if she asked just how one could have music on something too small for any record she’d ever seen or how someone could send documents back and forth without any paper or even film, none of the answers were going to make things any clearer.  Her heart was beating faster just thinking about it, and she could feel a brief flutter in her chest as her pulse went out of rhythm.

“It’s late; you should get some more rest.  We can start figuring things out in the morning,” she said, pushing herself up off the bed with a little more effort than it usually required.

Phyllis looked up at her.  “Am I taking your bed?  I’ll be fine in the chair; I don’t know if I can sleep much.”

Stella shook her head.  “There’s a bedroom over there; you can stay out here.” 

Phyllis didn’t need to know that the room was mostly being used for storing Bucky’s things while he was away and that Stella kept the door closed so she wouldn’t have to put as much coal on the stove in the kitchen to warm it as well as the rest of the apartment.  Bucky’s army pay stretched far enough for him to send her enough to pay for the single bedroom for storing his stuff and for whenever he got leave; it didn’t go much toward the extra fuel to heat it.  She’d leave the door open, pile on a couple extra blankets, and gradually the warmth from the kitchen would filter in, though.

Phyllis didn’t look entirely convinced, but didn’t question it.  “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Stella nodded, and turned to grab her nightgown from her dresser.  “Do you want me to turn off the light?”

“Yes, thanks,” Phyllis said, and Stella clicked it off, weaving her way through the kitchen by touch and familiarity.

She paused at the door to the bedroom. “Goodnight, Phyllis.”

“You can call me Phyl,” came floating through the darkness, and Stella thought for a moment that there was something like wry amusement in Phyl’s tone as she said it.  “Goodnight, Stella.”

Stella closed the bedroom door behind her, sagging onto the small bed that was the only thing in the room besides her dresser and the boxes of Bucky’s belongings.  The last couple hours felt like some surreal dream, and part of her was convinced that she’d wake up to find no strange woman sleeping in her sitting room or playing with some little device that was as good as magic, as much as she understood it.

As she quickly changed into her nightgown and opened the door a crack before diving into the narrow, cold bed, she knew deep down that when she woke up, Phyl would still be there, and the dream would still be all too real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I said updating would be infrequent, didn't I? :) I'm trying to work a chapter or two ahead before I post, but I've also been working a lot more hours in the last few months, as well as doing part-time college courses; good for the wallet, bad for the fic. I'm also trying to work a chapter or two ahead as I'm beta-less, so need more time to tweak things before posting.
> 
> Anyway, just letting you know that I am still working on this! Just...very slowly.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic for a long while, a little bit at a time, but hadn't posted yet as life has kept me from making a lot of headway on it. However, I've decided it's time to bite the bullet and start posting it, though chapters may be infrequent, and set my deadline to start as Phil Coulson's birthday. :)
> 
> I'd also like to say that I reserve the right to go back and tinker a little bit with earlier chapters if need be, though I don't expect to (part of the reason it's taken me so long to finally start posting is so I could have a firm idea of where this is going). If I do have to make any alterations that are important to the story, readers will be alerted in an author's note.


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